As predicted over a month ago, 20th Street and the surrounding blocks of Northeast Mission have reached peak hipness, and now the New York Times is on it.
In a travel piece from Tuesday's Grey Lady, the paper establishes the neighborhood corridor along Florida and 20th Streets, calling out Charles Chocolates, the new Heath Ceramics Factory, Central Kitchen/Salumeria and Trick Dog as the hot spots du jour. The NY Times' Bonnie Tsui defines the neighborhood character:
The newly coined Mission Creek neighborhood in San Francisco’s northeast Mission District has long been home to light industrial manufacturing. But lately Mission Creek has become a creative hub for local goods, and unlike in many fast-changing areas of the city, the new arrivals here have so far stayed true to the area’s roots: It’s a place where people make things.
The term was also "newly coined" when the San Francisco Business Journal noted the neighborhood's reinvention back in 2012. (And, we should note, the Times visited the other Mission Creek just last year.)
But we digress: the fact that the neighborhood is still mildly industrial, or at least industrial-looking, "makes it easier for artisans to set up shop," Tsui goes on. The neighborhood vibe is defined by everything from the "delicate house-made" pasta at Flour + Water to the "industrial aesthetic of Edison bulbs" at Trick Dog. All this without even mentioning the hip cachet of the recently opened Sightglass Coffee or the lines that are probably already forming outside of Tartine Bakery's third restaurant, coming soon to the very same Heath Ceramics building.
The Times' re-rebranding of the neighborhood isn't the first time someone has tried to put a name on this particular corner of the Mission either: In the first dot-com boom it was Media Gulch. More recently, the grating contraction "MishiPot" never quite caught on.
Previously: Second Sightglass Coffee Opens, 20th Street Neighborhood Reaches Peak Hipness
[NYT]
[EaterSF]